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Showing posts from January, 2011

Estate Tax Changes for 2011-2012 (& 2010)

Apparently Congress was following my posts and decided to wait until the last minute to make changes to the federal estate tax system. Three significant changes to be aware of from the TRA 2010: Exemption Amount Change - While $1 million was scheduled for the exemption amount for 2011 the new act implements a $5 million exemption per person. Thus, a married couple could pass on $10 million without worrying about federal estate taxes. With these type of numbers, there will be very few estates that will have any federal estate liability. In addition, for those individuals that passed in 2010, their estate can choose either the old 2010 "no estate tax - carryover basis" rules or the new "$5 million exemption - stepped-up basis". Portability - In somewhat of a surprise, one of the bigger changes was the addition of the idea of portability. The idea is essentially if your spouse doesn't "utilize" their exemption amount, the surviving spouse can take